Photo by Leah Ingram Eagle
Shelby County CFO Cheryl Naugher once again took a conservative approach when working on revenue projections for the county for the next fiscal year.
Naugher said she used three year and five year averages for the proposed revenue projections for FY2023, which begins Oct. 1, 2022. The subtotal for general fund total revenue is projected at $80.6 million, a decrease from the 2022 actual projected revenue to be collected of $86.9 million.
Real property tax is proposed at $18.9 million, higher than the actual projected revenue collected for 2022, which was $17.2 million.
“We actually have collected more than we budgeted for last year,” Naugher said.
For the mortgage and deed tax, Naugher took a five year average but said she expects with the higher interest rates for that to go possibly down from what is collected in 2022. It has decreased from $2.3 million in 2022 to a proposed $1.7 million for 2023.
Rental tax is also projected to decrease from $3.4 million to $2.7 million. Building permits are expected to decrease as well, from $1.5 million to $1.1 million.
“We think with interest rates that will kind of slow down some of the building permits,” Naugher said.
Naugher increased the projected revenue from the Simplified Sellers Use Tax (SSUT) significantly over last year to $3.8 million, which is up from $1.25 million in 2022. This tax is generated from online shopping purchases. She said half of that is additional sales tax that is an expense the commission pays out to the school boards.
“We are the only county that voluntarily pays one half of the SSUT tax to the school boards of education,” County Manager Chad Scroggins said.
The Shelby County Jail is projected to bring in $884,085 in revenue for FY22, which is significantly more than what was budgeted. Naugher said she increased the budgeted amount from $744,000 in 2022 to $775,185 for 2023 because it’s unknown how much non-county inmates and federal inmates will be utilizing the facility. Inmate health care is tracking a bit lower and is proposed at $1,289.518.
“Our projected [general fund] revenues are $5.4 million less than what we are projecting for our actual revenue for this year,” Naugher said.
Scroggins said that is still a very conservative number.
“We’ve got 10% for cost of living,” Scroggins said. “That's our current retail inflationary number. And obviously fuel prices, we believe that fuel prices will affect consumer spending.”
The proposed general fund total for revenue projection in FY23 is $74.6 million, down from just over $80 million in 2022.
Other items of note include:
- A projected increase for the Shelby County Airport from $1.3 million to over $1.5 million, as airport revenues are based on fuel cost
- A projected $60,000 is expected from the ADECA grant for the county’s mobile health unit.
- County lodging tax is projected at $2.3 million, which is just over $417,000 less than 2022 projections
- Gasoline tax funds (7 cent) are projected at just over $3.5 million at an almost 7% increase
- Gasoline tax funds (2, 4 and 5 cent) are projected at $2.6 million
- Roads and bridge funds are projected at $10.2 million
- The total highway department proposed projected budget for FY23 is $19.9 million
- County government capital improvement fund is projected at $823,200.
- Landfill revenues are projected at a 3% increase at $6 million and water services at a 12% increase at $13 million.
- Grants are projected at $706,000
Now all of the departments will send in their projected expenses and Naugher will balance back to the actual projected revenues, Scroggins said.
“We’ve gotten the revenues early and hope to have the expenditures early and our goal is to try to approve the budget in September before it goes into effect October 1."
